


Night Terrors

by That_Weird_Guy_From_Work



Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Lore Olympus (Webcomic)
Genre: F/M, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:13:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22965967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/That_Weird_Guy_From_Work/pseuds/That_Weird_Guy_From_Work
Summary: Raising small children never easy, only varying degrees of difficult.The difficulty increases exponentially when they're the first of their kind.
Relationships: Hades/Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Hades/Persephone (Lore Olympus)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 118





	Night Terrors

Saturday, December 21st, Circa ~600 B.C  
7:00 P.M  
Weather: Clear  
Hades and Persephone’s Abode, Greco-Roman Underworld

Persephone gently placed her son, dead asleep and much heavier than he normally he was as a result, into his small bed, tucking him in, brushing his white hair out of his face, and placing a kiss on his periwinkle cheek. Smiling widely, she took a minute to admire his face, so much like his father’s, except for his mouth, which was fuller than his, if only by a bit, and his nose was not as long as his father’s, though it was still noticeably larger than average. As she pulled away, a crown of blue zebra primrose flowers had developed around the crown of her head. She gingerly tip-toed her way towards his bedroom door, careful to keep her white fuzzy rabbit slippers from slapping against the floor, and exited the room, leaving the door open just a crack to provide proper ventilation.  
The boy’s father, Hades, wrapped his arm around her slender shoulders as the two of them walked back to their bedroom, his long navy blue bathrobe, slightly darker than his own skin, trailing behind them. “You are so incredibly good at that.” He whispered down at her in his resonant baritone-bass, a sort of fatigued admiration obvious in his voice and expression.  
Persephone squeezed him back with both her arms, rubbing his exposed abdomen, looking up at him with tired pride. “Just comes naturally. You’re not so bad yourself though.”  
Hades yawned, covering his mouth with his free arm. He scratched his head afterwards, ruffling his nearly white hair, which he’d neglected to get cut for the past several months and was starting to become shaggy as a result. “I can probably thank my mother for that. Kronos certainly wasn’t a very good example.”  
Persephone smiled again at the mention of her mother-in-law, yawning. “Rhea’s wonderful. So glad we put her in charge of Elysium.”  
Hades smiled as well, once a rarity, now rather commonplace for at least half the year. “Some have called it nepotism, but proper delegation is important as rulers, especially once children enter the picture.”  


“Yeah well some people are dumb.” Persephone deadpanned.  


Hades opened the door to their bedroom for his wife, hastily finger-combing his hair out of his eyes. “They’re not entirely wrong, I offered her the position because I knew she’d do well in it.”  


Persephone shuffled through the door, yawning once more and stretching out. “Not nepotism then.”  


Hades closed the door and removed his robe, balling it up and tossing it into the plastic basket next to the bed about a quarter-full of dark clothing. “Think maybe we got you the wrong size? Those pajamas look a bit lopsided.”  


Persephone looked down at how her white pajamas with with pink stripes, the same color as her skin and hair, fit: they fit perfectly around the thighs, seat, and chest, and rather loosely about everywhere else. “I’ll just get them tailored.”  


Hades nodded, patting her on the shoulder and kissing her on the cheek. “Sounds good. Oh, I meant to ask, how did Zagreus do during the trip around Underworld Corp for Bring Your Child to Work Day?”  


Persephone nodded slowly. “Pretty well. We spent most of our time in the library,” her expression became concerned, “and he seemed a little too interested in Tartarus, we’ll have to watch out for that for that.”  


Hades nodded in agreement. “Agreed, but perhaps he’s affined to Tartarus somehow; we don’t know what he’s the God of yet.”  


Persephone narrowed her eyes ever so slightly. “Hades, we don’t even know strictly what he is. He just turned five today and he hasn’t displayed any powers yet; not even Heraclean strength, and Gaia knows it took ages to wean him. He looks like a nature spirit, that might be all he is.”  


Hades looked almost disappointed by that, averting his eyes slightly. He didn’t seem distinctly angry or frustrated either, just concerned.  
Persephone approached him, placing her hand on his cheek. “Hades, we have to be okay with that possibility.”  


He reached up to his cheek and gently grasped her hand. “I am, I’m just concerned for what a world like this might do to someone like him if he’s not a God. A-a-and,” Hades stuttered, sighing, “I-I don’t want to have to watch my son die, Perse.”  


Persephone stood up on her toes to kiss him on the lips, and Hades bent down to reciprocate. Persephone wrapped her arms around his torso after they pulled away from each other. “I don’t either, but I wouldn’t worry. Gods and Goddesses producing nature spirits and nymphs is extremely rare. I sincerely doubt it happened in our case, our genetic counselor would have told us something.”  


Hades’ face scrunched up in concern the same way it always did in matters related to Zagreus. “I just want him to be safe.”  


Persephone led Hades by the hand towards their massive bed, sitting down with him on it. “I do too, but he’ll be safe even if he’s a God without any powers. He’s a smart boy. Never stops reading.”  


He took a moment before responding, breathing deeply before he spoke. “Persephone, I love you both more than anything in the world, and that’s why I’m so anxious about this, even when presented with several very good reasons why I shouldn’t be.”  


Persephone kissed him again on the cheek. “I know, Big Blue, and that’s one of the reasons why I love you so much. Now let’s get some rest and get ready for Zagreus’ first round of night terrors.”  


Hades looked as if he was going to continue speaking, but decided that potential time sleeping was more valuable than beating a dead horse, so he kissed Persephone once more before slipping under the covers and turning the baby monitor on maximum volume. Persephone imitated the action and turned the baby monitor on her side of the bed on maximum volume as well.  


It took a little more than five minutes before Hades spoke again, a new record. “...why do you think he has them?” He whispered, grasping Persephone’s hand under the graphite-colored sheets.  


Persephone could only assume he was referring to Zagreus’ night terrors. Persephone sighed in mild frustration. “I don’t know, Hades. We talked to everyone we could reasonably talk to about it and nobody knows why. Only reason he could happen is because I'm a fertility goddess, and nobody knows what medical issues might be present. The Oracle said he’d be fine but we don’t know for sure.”  


Another pause. Persephone felt Hades squeeze her hand. “Suppose it’s a neurological issue?”  


“Hades, regardless of what kind of problem it is, we’re going to have to deal with it in a little more than an hour or so. His doctor said they’d stop soon, and I trust him, so how about we just get some sleep? I love you dearly but now’s really not the time for thi-”  


Suddenly, the both of them heard a loud cracking noise coming from Zagreus’ room through both of their baby monitors and down the hallway.  


Hades and Persephone both sat up, discussion bordering on argument completely forgotten, and promptly shot out of bed, Hades dressed solely in his underwear, and ran towards the door. Hades ripped the door open and Persephone sprinted through it and ran down the hallway, stopping dead in her tracks before she got to the bedroom door, eyes wide.  


The bedroom door had been blown off of its hinges and sent flying across the hallway, out through one of the glass walls, and out into the backyard. A trail of seemingly random flowers growing from the, gemstones, and streaks of precious metals in the ebony wooden floor led from the side of Zagreus’ bed out of his room and down the hallway towards the kitchen.  


Persephone stood in place as she heard Hades practically skid to a stop behind her. “Well,” he panted, placing his large hands on her shoulders, “at least we know he’s a God now.”  


Persephone and her husband followed the trail of flowers, gemstones, and minerals down the hallway and turned right into the kitchen, only to see the trail disappear completely and be greeted by the sight of what appeared to be completely nonfunctional lighting in the room.  


This is to say that the laws of physics that governed the behavior of photons were not entirely behaving correctly in the room. Some objects were casting disproportionately intense shadows, but many simply were not responding at all to the dimmed ceiling lights and multitude of fireflies that Zagreus had presumably generated in the slightest. Some objects had been entirely enveloped in shadow, as if the absence of light was a sort of weighty substance. Large puddles of the same shadowy substance had been scattered all across the different surfaces, even on the ceiling. The puddles looked to be drawing light from the numerous sources of light in the room, including Hades’ glowing red irises.  


Persephone pointed at the aforementioned puddle with a raised eyebrow. “I know I can’t do that,” she looked up at Hades with a confused expression, “can you do that?”  


Hades shook his head. “Not that I know of, but I’ve read about my,” he began counting on his fingers, “Great-Great Aunt Nyx doing something like this. I can call her once we find Zagreus.”  


Persephone slowly approached one of the smaller puddles of shadow, crouching down to touch it. Hades shouted out something to the effect of “stop, you don’t know what that stuff is,” but Persephone already had her index and middle fingers in it. It was smooth, mildly viscous, and incredibly cold. It took some effort to remove her fingers from the stuff. She was mildly curious as to what the stuff tasted like, but not nearly enough to actually taste it. The remnants of the shadowy liquid fell off her hand in long rivulets, and dissipated into a black mist upon hitting solid ground.  


Persephone blinked four times in rapid succession, brushing some of her hair out of her face. “I really don’t like this.”  


Hades, over by their espresso machine, had a large porcelain container in his hand, and was smiling far too widely for their current situation. “Well, at least we know he’s okay. Little guy raided the cookie jar.”  


In an odd way, that was reassuring. Zagreus was still himself, he hadn’t been possessed by anything. Persephone looked around. “Well, after that, where would he go?”  
Hades folded his arms, covering his mouth with his fist. “We converted the library into his bedroom, so he didn’t just beeline to all the books, and he already raided the kitchen, what else is there?”  


The two of them heard a loud crash that sounded like significant amounts of expensive machinery being dropped on the ground, followed by the sound of a car alarm. Persephone looked at Hades, and he looked back at her, and Persephone imagined the same thought hit them at once.  


Zagreus’ favorite toys were all model cars.  


The two now-terrified (for their vehicles as well as their only child) parents scrambled from their kitchen and into their massive garage, only to be met by the sight of a massive, vaguely humanoid construct made of black ooze about the size of three of their larger cars stacked on top of each other that was best described as appearing to be made of black lava; an ever-shifting black ooze with black carapacial armor. It greatly resembled the black shadowy liquid they’d found in the kitchen, and was currently using its massive, clumsy “hands,” if they could be called such, to play with two of Hades and Persephone’s cars as if they were toys. Zagreus sat atop the construct’s massive shoulder, clearly very sleepy but he still appeared to be safe and enjoying himself.  


When Zagreus spotted his parents (who had been standing there in the doorway, completely dumbfounded and intensely confused), he perked up. “Mom, Dad!” He shouted, leaping from the construct’s shoulder. Persephone’s heart leapt to her throat when she saw him jump, but her concern for his safety, while entirely reasonable, was unnecessary, as it was not her son that broke, but the ground. Upon landing, Zagreus cracked the polished black stone floor of the garage, and did so with every highly enthusiastic step up to them. He embraced them tightly, and his huge felt more like a massive vice grip than a hug from a five-year-old boy.  


Persephone, nearly literally being choked with love, needed her husband to rescue her, so Hades escaped the hug and quickly picked Zagreus up. “Hey, Zagreus, um, everything alright?”  


His eyes lit up. Persephone didn’t think red eyes could be adorable until Hades, but their little boy just took it to a whole new level. “Oh yeah! I think I was sleepwalking again because I woke up in the middle of the kitchen, but then a lot of weird stuff happened-”  


Persephone, having regained her breath after nearly having her spine snapped by a five-year-old, planted a kiss on his cheek. “How about we get you a snack and we can talk about it, okay?”  


Zagreus blushed, indicating that he had been fully conscious when swiping those cookies, but said nothing. Persephone grinned, as did Hades. Hades moved to bring Zagreus inside when Zagreus placed his hands on his father’s shoulder. “Wait, I need to put my shadow back first.”  


Persephone was intensely confused by that statement. Hades voiced that confusion. “You need to what?”  


Persephone only then noticed that Zagreus was not casting a shadow, in spite of the garage being well-lit.  


Before either parent could say anything, Zagreus turned and looked at the massive shadow construct, and his eyes went black. He opened his mouth, and the construct turned into a black mist, flying into Zagreus’ mouth and eyes at an almost worrying speed. Persephone reflexively shouted her son’s name, but the whole process was over nearly as quickly as it began. Zagreus shut his eyes and closed his mouth, and upon reopening his eyes, they were back to their usual red. He also had a shadow again, and the massive construct was gone.  


Zagreus blinked a few times, clutching at his head. “Oh wow, that felt weird.”  


Hades looked concernedly at Persephone. Persephone cupped his cheek. “Honey, do you happen to know what that thing-”  


“Επιαλης. That’s its name.” Zagreus swiftly corrected her.  


“Don’t cut your mother off.” Hades scolded bluntly, but not particularly harshly.  


Zagreus simply yawned, stretching out as his father carried him towards the kitchen table. “...I think I just wanna go back to sleep.”  


And then, nearly instantaneously, he fell back asleep on his father’s shoulder. Persephone looked around at the kitchen, still full of black liquid, and light still not behaving correctly. She was about to voice her concern on this matter, but then all of the liquid spontaneously disappeared and the lighting returned to normal.  


She blinked in surprise again, then looked slowly up at her husband, who was gently bouncing their son in his sleep. Hades was grinning smugly, smiling that same smile he always made when he was extremely right and she was extremely wrong. “Told you he was a God.”

**Author's Note:**

> Zagreus, in spite of there being very little information about him in ancient texts, has always been a fascinating figure to me. Obviously I took some liberties with him because of how little information there is regarding him, but I think there's enough to make something good.  
> Hades and Persephone here are the Hades and Persephone from Lore Olympus, a fantastic webcomic I strongly advise anyone reading this that is unfamiliar with it to dig into straight away.


End file.
